Ephraim Hardcastle
DOES Prince Andrew’s flaunting of the Grenadier Guards regimental badge while riding at Windsor mean he clings to the hope that Mummy might give him back his old job as colonel? While unlikely, officers in the outfit – known affectionately as the Bill Browns – sniff that, as he now has no association with the regiment, he should not wear it.
DESPITE the Queen’s lacklustre enthusiasm for tennis – she’s attended Wimbledon only four times – tournament finalist Christine Truman, 81, optimistically dispatched a copy of her memoir to the monarch. She was delighted to receive a thank-you letter from Buckingham Palace. Will the unread book turn up in Wimbledon patron Kate’s Christmas stocking?
ANNEKA Rice’s claim that all her female TV colleagues were powerless and either imprisoned behind news desks or draped over cars is robustly disputed by Dame Esther Rantzen. She says that before Anneka, pictured, leapt into her first jump suit, Late Night Line-Up’s Joan Bakewell and Blue Peter’s Biddy Baxter were among the females who excelled at the BBC, adding: ‘And although I wrote, produced and presented That’s Life for 21 years, nobody ever offered to drape me over a car.’ Perish the thought!
LIFE imitating art? Suspended Tory MP Chris Pincher enthuses in his drinks column in The Critic magazine: ‘Uncle Monty, the lubricious booby in Bruce Robinson’s wonderful Withnail & I, selects his preprandial from a drinks table pregnant with possibilities with all the care one would expect from a seasoned practitioner.’ Uncle Monty, played by the brilliant Richard Griffiths, is a lecherous character who disturbs younger men with his unwanted advances. Does Pincher regard him as a role model?
HOSTING a summer lunch for the prosmoking group Forest, Ranald Macdonald, owner of London’s Boisdale restaurants, was gratified to receive a heartening message of support from 35gaspers-a-day David Hockney apologising for his non-attendance. How was he? Not very well, alas. Non smokingrelated, we hope!
PETRONELLA Wyatt, Boris’s mistress (retired), reflects on the changing nature of Tory sex scandals. ‘They used to be predominantly straight. Gay sex scandals were once Labour’s province.’ The daughter of late Labour MP and Tote chairman Woodrow Wyatt adds: ‘My father told me how he had to keep watch outside the Commons loo because Tom Driberg was carrying on with one of the cooks.’
SKY’S political editor Beth Rigby recalls remarking to ITV counterpart Robert Peston that the world leaders gathered on a Cornish beach for last year’s G7 group photo resembled TV’s Love Island. ‘And Robert was just like, “What’s Love Island?”’ says Beth. ‘Robert didn’t know what Love Island was.’ Surely swivel-eyed Pesto is to be congratulated.